


Stop That Knocking (Let Me In)

by AmityRavenclawElf



Category: Lovecraft Country (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Fix-It, Friendship, Other, Redemption, just for fun i guess?, probably not historically accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27110320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmityRavenclawElf/pseuds/AmityRavenclawElf
Summary: When she hefted her pipe and stared down the twisted, inhuman girl shambling toward her, Diana's eyes were wide open.And that was why she stopped.
Relationships: Diana & Topsy & Bopsy, Topsy & Bopsy
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Stop That Knocking (Let Me In)

Diana had never been one to close her eyes too much.

She didn't close her eyes during scary movies, she didn't close her eyes when she had to get a shot, she didn't even close her eyes when her daddy was lying in front of her in a coffin when he should have been at home, reading in his chair or drying the dishes or telling her to go get the dictionary instead of just defining the word he'd used. Her parents had taught her to value learning, to gather as much information as she could and use all the information she had. She might run, she might fight, she might even freeze, but she seldom closed her eyes. So, when she hefted her pipe and stared down the twisted, inhuman girl shambling toward her, Diana's eyes were wide open.

And that was why she stopped.

She would have laid Topsy's corny behind _out_ , but she recognized her. And something like sympathy stirred inside of her.

"I threw rocks at you," she realized aloud.

Topsy let out a horrible laugh and did not stop dancing, did not stop approaching with her long, sharp fingers. It was a sound of harsh ridicule, but in it Diana couldn't help hearing something like her friends' laughs when they'd been playing with the Ouija board at Leti's place, before that had gone wrong. Before...

And the laugh was distorted, of course, and wrong in certain ways like Topsy was wrong in certain ways. Specifically, it was a slightly choked sound, and it warbled as if Topsy was speaking to her from underwater.

"Why is it you? Why are you like this?" Diana had not lowered the pipe, nor her guard, but she was George's daughter, Hippolyta's daughter, and questions were the currency of her family.

Topsy only laughed at her again. With a clamor at the door, Bopsy arrived to join in on the haunting dance. Join in the laughter.

The girls at the shop had been laughing, too. Before Diana had thrown rocks at them. Why were her monsters these twisted versions of them? She idly roamed the room, just enough to keep out of their reach as she thought about it. (She knew their pace by now; they seemed erratic at first glance, but she had detected the pattern to their speeding up and slowing down an hour into this curse.) She turned and walked backwards, to scan her eyes over them, and she soon found herself noticing other incidental familiarities.

"Did you try to do your hair yourself?" she asked. Those red ribbons. Hadn't she tried to do her hair up in plaits and red ribbons, when she was six, and then her mom had taught her and Atticus how to French braid. A warm memory, that nearly brought tears to her eyes. Her hair hadn't looked quite like Topsy's or Bopsy's, before Mama had fixed it, but the memory was still tangled up in the sight of them. "There's nobody helping you?"

Their lips, too, now that she was really looking. Now that her view wasn't so distorted by the lens of fear and confusion. What had appeared twisted and grotesque now looked...injured. Like something done _to_ them. Smiles cut into their faces. And the red on their lips...Again, that just tugged at memories of trying to put on Mama's makeup.

"There's nobody helping you?" she said again. She almost tripped over a box, moved more quickly to compensate. Topsy's and Bopsy's arms were waving in sync, their feet shuffling rhythmically.

A growing membrane of sweat was interceding between Diana's hand and the pipe. She wiped one hand on her dress but didn't move her gaze from the distorted girls before her.

Distorted.

Like monsters.

Stinking, like the hottest day of the summer.

She hadn't known monsters could sweat, but if she had been running around all day, so had they. In fact, they'd been dancing. They hadn't appeared to tire, but the musk was definite.

But they were monsters.

"That's not your fault," she mused.

And for a second, just a second, they both stopped. Then they both let out that same distorted laugh. Diana laughed with them, just to see what they'd do. They stopped laughing. Stopped smiling, as much as they even could. Stared at her warily.

It was the first hint of self-awareness she had seen from them, the first suggestion that they could perceive themselves as beings like her. Because if they could be wary, then they were aware that there was such a thing as danger, whatever form it took for them. There was such a thing as self-preservation, self-defense, fear. Pretty rich, seeing as they'd been harassing her for twelve hours, but also something she could work with.

As their eyes were glazing over again and their absent smiles were returning, Diana quickly mimicked a dance move she'd seen them make.

Now, they looked outright taken aback. They shared a look like she was crazy. Again, pretty ironic, all things considered. But they weren't approaching anymore. Their hands, with those pointed nails, were lowered to their sides. She did the move again, wondering if she was even doing it right; she'd never been much of a dancer, and Topsy and Bopsy were clearly on some whole other level, where that was concerned. When the two kept staring at her like she was stupid, Diana demanded, "Well, show me how, then!"

Bopsy let out a laugh. But then Topsy did the move.

...

"Wait your turn! Stop being so childish!"

When Montrose entered the store, Diana was giggling, sitting in a circle (well, triangle) with two other girls her age. Still dressed in the white gown she'd worn to the funeral, but now with a cap, as well. The two strangers had hair sticking up in every direction and were both dressed like the kind of black doll a white girl might keep in her toy box. Diana was filing the nails of one of them (Lord, their nails were sharp as knives!) while the other made impatient noises and periodically whacked Dee with an Orythia Blue comic that was probably supposed to be tiding her over while she waited.

It was the one getting the beauty treatment who noticed Montrose there, first; she looked at him hard, like he was a burglar and she was armed. And she tugged at Diana's hand to alert her. When Diana's eyes met his, the mirth left them, replaced by surprise, then apprehension. "Somebody finally came looking for me?" she said.

Montrose ran a hand over his forehead; he didn't have the energy for a second confrontation with this orphaned teenage girl. "Dee, tell your friends goodnight and come your black a-" He cut himself off. "Come home." He prayed to God and George Freeman that this girl would just do as she was told.

Instead of getting up, though, Diana went slack at the shoulders, her eyebrows shooting up and her eyes going wide. "Uncle Montrose, you can see them?!"

**Author's Note:**

> Idk, I felt bad for Topsy and Bopsy, so I wanted to write something for them. Not my best work, but it didn't have to be.
> 
> Please comment!


End file.
